1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a DMB (Digital Media Broadcast) phone, a game phone, a chatting phone, a camera phone, an MP3 phone, a cellular phone, a PCS (Personal Communications Service), a PDA (Personal Digital Assistants), an HHP (Hand Held Phone), and the like, and more particularly to a slide-type portable terminal using a flexible material.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, a “portable terminal” refers to an electronic device that a user can carry to perform wireless communication with a desired partner. To facilitate portability, designs of such portable terminals tend not only to be compact, slim, and light, but are also moving toward providing multimedia capability and a wider variety of functions. In particular, future portable terminals are expected to incorporate greater multi-functionality and multi-purpose utility, as well as being more compact and light weight and having the capability of modification to suit various multimedia or Internet environments. Additionally, portable terminals are now commonly used by people of all ages and all walks of life throughout the world, and are recognized by some people as a nearly indispensable commodity.
Portable terminals may be classified into various categories according to their appearance, such as a bar-type portable terminal, a flip-type portable terminal and a folder-type portable terminal. A bar-type portable terminal refers to a device having a single housing of a bar-shape. A flip-type portable terminal refers to a device in which a flip is rotatably mounted to a housing by a hinge unit. A folder-type communication device refers to the manner in which a folder is rotatably connected to a single bar-type housing by a hinge unit.
Portable terminals may also be classified into a necklace-type portable terminal and a bracelet-type portable terminal according to the wearing position or the manner in which users wear the portable terminals. The necklace-type portable terminal refers to a portable manner in which a terminal is worn around a neck of a user by using a string. Further, the bracelet-type portable terminal refers to a portable manner in which a terminal is worn around a wrist of a user.
In addition, portable terminals may be classified into a rotation-type portable terminal and a slide-type communication device according to the manner in which the portable terminal is opened and closed. The rotation-type portable terminal refers to a manner in which two housings are rotatably connected, opposed to each other. The slide-type communication device refers to a manner in which two housings are slid with respect to each other in the lengthwise direction of the device. These variously classified portable terminals can be easily understood by those skilled in the art.
Meanwhile, conventional portable terminals now tend to transmit data at a high speed in addition to performing the basic voice communication function. In other words, according to the increase in consumer demand, portable terminals now tend to provide a service using a wireless communication technology capable of transmitting data at high speed.
Recent portable terminals also tend to be equipped with a camera lens to obtain video signals for transmission. Particularly, current portable terminals have an external or embedded camera lens module which enables users to perform video communication with desired partners or to photograph desired subjects.
However, slide-type portable terminals have generated the following problems. According to a slide-type portable device disclosed in Korean Patent Application No. 2002-71911, which is commonly assigned to the assignee of the present application, since two housings are slidably connected by a slide module, the manufacturing cost is increased, and the assembling convenience and the productivity are decreased due to the complex structure and the increase in the number of parts. Further, since the slide-type portable device requires much mounting space for the slide module, it is disadvantageous to try to make the terminal thin and small-sized. Further, according to the slide-type portable terminal, since a flexible circuit is used to electrically connect the two housings, shorts of the flexible circuit are often generated due to the repetitive opening/closing operations.
Specifically, since the conventional folder-type portable terminal includes a body, a folder and a hinge module connecting the body and the folder, the hinge module should be mounted. Therefore, the structure is complex, the number of parts increases and the assembling convenience decreases, thereby increasing the manufacturing cost of the folder-type portable terminal. Since the folder-type portable terminal uses a flexible circuit to electrically connect the body and the folder and the flexible circuit should pass through a hinge axis, shorts of the flexible circuit are often generated due to the repetitive opening/closing operations.